


haunt // bed

by isonlyme



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Angst, Based on a The 1975 Song, Depression, Diary/Journal, Drugs, Las Vegas Era (The Goldfinch), Love Letters, M/M, Prose Poem, Purple Prose, Song Lyrics, Song fic, Song: Haunt // Bed (The 1975), Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Drinking, Young Love, Young Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky, boris is angsty and lovesick we love it, entry, moody boris boohoo, should this be a trio of letters someone help me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29145396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isonlyme/pseuds/isonlyme
Summary: "Treat me like an old friend, I can't exist within my own head, so I insist on haunting your bed."
Relationships: Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky, boreo - Relationship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	haunt // bed

_I guess I can understand you now; those last hours when your dad was dead. I was stealing wine and trying to buy some time while you pretended not to cry. You were spinning around the kitchen, high as fuck, with Xandra trying to kill you—but why did you laugh so hard? Was it the way the drugs made your smile shine out of your face, how I saw you? Beauty amidst the terror of what was to come? The endless possibilities of that last night, we were reckless, I know that now. Felt as though we could do anything. Well, I wanted to have fun. I was sure from the hollow look in your eyes that you wanted to be dead. With her. Wished you had gone with your dad._

  
_None of this I said; I kept my mouth shut as you paced Xandra’s room holding onto a yellow duffel bag and what looked like dread. I didn’t know those earrings were your mother’s, I didn’t know Xandra was keeping money from your dead dad: but never tell me you have no one. Was I empty to you? The nights I held you while you woke up screaming her name, the countless times I hid your drugs when you weren’t looking (I knew you were too fucked up to be careful, to be safe, just end it then) and all of the things I could never show. Adopt you? Are you that shallow? Don’t you remember how our bed was a haven for the nightmares, clothing us in the stench of alcohol and chlorine. The press of our warm bodies. You wouldn’t remember; you were too drunk to tell the difference between a brush of our numb hands and the wind drifting through your fingers._

  
_So I lay here in your bed with Xandra asleep in the next room praying for borrowed time to stay. The imprint, the crinkled outline of your body against the sheets will never drift from my mind. Even with you gone._

_I can’t even sleep—you left me here in the street with your kiss lingering and the air stale from the after effects of the acid. The lamp lights burned my eyes as I watched you go. Where did our smiling stars run off to? The night was like pitch and devoid of any color. It hurts to be awake now, without you. Consuming me._

_God, the things I couldn’t say, the feelings I could never show: that I was in love with a boy, steady and entangled. Addicted to the way your voice sounded at 3am, after times you never remembered. Falling for your height, your irritated smirk. The tentative way you stepped into the pool, like bath water, much younger children treading in neon backlit filters. I feel like I’m treading water, stepping around what we both know: is it the same for you? We took drugs to avoid the fact, shimmering black and blue. Somehow existing without reading between the lines. I’m sorry. I read between them and tried to touch you again. Your sunburnt face, your bruised knee. How it felt when you shifted away from me—my ribs to your back—you get nervous when you overthink. The absence of warmth, of touch._

_The lights are on in the next room and I’m worried she’s going to kick me out. I don’t want to leave the memories, the traces that haunt me incessantly: an old shirt you forgot under your bed, empty Marlboro packs, anyone in passing with the same unruly blonde hair and distant eyes that send me into reeling panic—It’s not you._   


  
_I’d say I love you but you’d never say it back. I could have said it then, hours ago, on that street corner. Why wouldn’t you say it? If they got the wrong impression, if they said it was all true: would you hold your head higher or separate our blending shadows?_

  
_I crossed a line into the imaginary: kissing you out in the open, our lips a story we never wrote. A border disconnecting the unspoken nights, an invisible code. But I was sick of waiting. And now waiting is all I can do. If you could have only listened to what I had to say, would you have stayed? I wasn’t afraid of the truth, of the lies or even my thievery. You’ll see the bird is gone and come running back. To me._  


_Your silhouette in the taxi making me see I’m not afraid of taking those pills anymore. I’m not afraid. Not without you. The terrible sounds, the shards of your presence cutting into me. Your television set (my dad’s gone too, where else can I see you?) your room. The recurring theme even with a character removed._

_So I lay here in your bed, imagining the car turning around; your eyes so tragic and shattering maybe it was best that you went away. There’s no life to your house—without your dad, without you. The drugs are starting to kick in—the small ones, the end-of-life painkillers I made sure you didn’t swipe. And I’m losing the fragments of you, the TV is on too loud and I can’t remember how you looked when I first met you. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe I was too afraid to forget you, but what else is there to remember? You left without an I love you._

  
_-Boris_  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! it was a random poetic thing that appeared in my head (the 1975 I blame you) but I hoped you all like it!! kudos and comments always appreciated :)) 
> 
> If this should be a multiple part series thing, let me know!! I have an idea but I want to know if I should continue <3


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